TRACK 04: Participation and New Governance: Ethics, Responsibilities and Commitments
Co-chairs: Louis Albrechts, Doris Gstach
The academic ambition behind the concept of
governance in spatial planning matters aimed at developing more inclusive
and democratic urban and regional processes. For some it raises questions of
the various actors’ responsibilities. How can especially civic actors not
only be empowered but made accountable? To which extent is a
shared/participatory governance legitimated to compensate for the statutory
rights and legal responsibilities of governments concerning the enforced
decisions? Problematically, mainly in formalized processes a
wide range of these relationships are being compressed into a
one-size-fits-all concept of ‘citizens’ par-ticipation’, which doesn’t seem
to provide the equal and reciprocal relationship between the state and
citizens so much aimed for. Moreover, in daily practice emerging informal
institutions and opaque networks in territorial governance seem to pose a
challenge to democracy and to the democratic representation, accountability
and transparency of decision-making processes. In addition the privatization
of public services and public spaces fuel the danger that issues are
replaced from an arena of public debate and decision-making into closed
networks of elite representatives and technical experts who take upon
themselves the right to resolve the issues at hand between each-other. So
questions have to be asked about the legitimacy/democratic character of
these processes. A crucial element in this respect is the way in which
people are excluded or included in planning processes and the way the
relationship between people – technologies of gov¬ernment – are
organized.
A number of questions can be raised:
- How can we understand and keep distinct the political dimension of planning (the realm of antagonism and difference) and the politics of planning which is the creation of a socio-spatial order?
- How are conflicts and dissents handled?
- What should the outcome be of participation processes: consensus, agreement, pact?
- How can political and institutional regimes act responsively from an administrative and democratic capacity while being sensitive to, and doing justice to, diverse interests, values and field of knowledge?
- To which extent is a shared / participatory governance legitimated to compensate for the statutory rights of governments connected to legal responsibility for the enforced decisions?
- What is the role of the public sector, when civil society takes over former public responsibilities
- How to define the role of planners (technical, facilitating, political?
- What is the role of participation in governance – conceptualized as an institutional regime based on inter-scalar cooperation and networked public-private partnerships?
- What is the democratic legitimacy and credibility of Governance?